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Nothing in any reporting requirement asks a company to say which of its customers is also building what it sells them, so the relationship appears where every large customer appears: a revenue line, a share of the total, a name in the concentration note. Samsung Display commands the largest share of Apple's OLED orders while Samsung Electronics sells phones against the iPhone. Amazon's parcel volume passed UPS and FedEx by 2023, and in May 2026 it opened the network to outside firms and both their shares fell close to ten percent. Neither relationship was concealed; neither was ever stated as a period with an end. This pack turns it into one multiplication. Revenue times the margin on their business gives what the relationship earns a year; multiplied by the years they would need to replace you, it gives the whole of what it is worth, because after that they no longer need you. Set against the same annual profit at the multiple you trade on — which prices a stream as though it had no end — the replacement time over the multiple says what share of that price the years actually support. It stops on five conditions: no revenue from the customer, no total revenue, no margin on their business, no replacement time, and nothing said about what you are as a share of their own costs.
What is the Rival Customer Strategy Pack
The Rival Customer Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: how much of your revenue comes from somebody who is also trying to replace you, and how long do you have? It is built around one organizing claim: everything a company knows about such a customer is a rate, and what it needs is a period. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a relationship model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced relationships, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
Everything a company knows about a customer who competes with it is a rate — a margin, a share of revenue — and what it needs is a period, whose end the customer sets. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The years — what the relationship earns before the customer can replace you. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the years a rival customer needs are missing
Not because anybody is hiding them. Because every figure a company holds about a customer is a rate, whether a margin, a share of revenue, or a growth number, and rates are what finance produces. How long the customer would need to replace you is not a finance question: it is qualification, tooling, ramp, and yield, and the people who could answer it have never been asked.
There is a second reason. In most companies the person carrying the supply revenue and the person running the arm that competes with the same counterparty report to the same executive, so the trade-off is settled inside one set of incentives and never reaches a board — which means the question that would need the years never gets asked.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. Revenue times the margin on their business gives what the relationship earns a year; multiplied by the replacement time it gives the whole of what it is worth; and set against the same profit at your own multiple it says what share of the price the years actually support.
What is in the Rival Customer Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why a rival customer is reported as a customer, why the years are missing, the arithmetic, and the five halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or an executive committee, with nine sourced relationships and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Relationship model. Eleven candidate replacement times across the columns, what the relationship earns before they can leave, and what the market prices it at.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next relationship cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced relationships — three still working, one cut deliberately, one that ran out with no announcement, and two structural answers.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: who they are, what they pay, how long replacing you takes, and what they spend building it.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. Naming the rival customers, the margin on their business, getting the years from engineering, finding what they spend, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Rival Customer Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive whose largest customer has started building the thing they buy; a chief financial officer asked why the market will not pay more for a growing relationship; a commercial leader carrying a target on an account with an expiry no one has dated; a board member reading a concentration note that gives a share and no period; an operations director who knows how long replacing them would take and has never been asked; an investor pricing somebody else's anchor customer; a founder about to sell to a company that could build it; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case $840m from a rival customer is 21.5 percent of revenue and earns $201.6m a year — more than the $137.5m earned by the arm it endangers. Over the 3.5 years replacing them would take, the whole relationship is worth $705.6m against the $2,217.6m the market prices that profit at: the years support 31.8 percent of the price. Meanwhile the customer spends $310m a year building the capability, 1.5 times what the relationship earns.
Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast the replacement time — that figure is your own engineering judgment, and the Model tab sweeps it precisely because no one can settle it from outside. It does not handle two rival customers at once; run the page twice, because two replacement times average into a figure that describes neither. It does not price the customer's own decision, which belongs in a paper written from their side. And it says nothing about what replaces the revenue: Shopify's answer cost it a whole division, exchanged for a 13 percent stake in the buyer.
This decision, in two minutes
Short videos on companies that faced it, built from the casebooks this pack draws on.
Questions about the Rival Customer Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and nine supporting rows. What the relationship earns before they can leave, which is the annual profit multiplied by the replacement time, and what the market prices that same profit at, which assumes no end at all. Around them: the customer's share of your revenue, what you earn from them a year, what the arm that competes with them earns, the ratio between those two, what share of the market's price the years support, what they spend a year building your capability, that spend against what they pay you, and what leaving you costs them as a share of their own costs. The Model tab sweeps the replacement time, and one row turns from No to Yes only where it reaches the multiple you trade on.
- Are you saying we should drop the customer?
- No, and one of the four readings is a relationship with nothing to fix. In almost every case in the evidence the supply business was the better business, and only one company in the set cut such a customer deliberately — taking revenue down to $88.7bn to do it. The pack states what the relationship earns, over what period, against what it endangers.
- Our customer can't replace us.
- That is a position rather than an estimate. Ask engineering for the steps and how long each takes: qualification, tooling, ramp, yield. The number that comes back is usually between one and five years, and it is the number the customer is working to.
- Does this only apply to manufacturers?
- No. It applies wherever a counterparty buys from you and competes with you: components, logistics, cloud infrastructure, content licensing, private-label manufacturing, payments, distribution. The inputs are named in dollars and years rather than in units.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced relationships: Samsung, TSMC, Amazon, UPS, Intel, Netflix, ASML, Aldi, and Shopify. Each is dated, read through what was held and what became of it, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Samsung, TSMC, and ASML are in the set because their positions worked and are still working; without them the set would teach that a rival customer is a defect, which it is not. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Rival Customer Strategy Pack?
- The Rival Customer Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: How much of your revenue comes from somebody who is also trying to replace you? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, relationship model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: everything a company knows about a customer who competes with it is a rate — a margin, a share of revenue — and what it needs is a period, whose end the customer sets. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Rival Customer Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Rival Customer Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why a rival customer is reported as a customer, why the years are missing, the arithmetic, and the five halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or an executive committee, with nine sourced relationships and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Relationship model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate replacement times across the columns, what the relationship earns before they can leave, and what the market prices it at. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next relationship cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced relationships — three still working, one cut deliberately, one that ran out with no announcement, and two structural answers. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: who they are, what they pay, how long replacing you takes, and what they spend building it. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Naming the rival customers, the margin on their business, getting the years from engineering, finding what they spend, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Rival Customer Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.